Among the Yawalapiti tribe in the Amazon Basin, Claude Laroque and a young indigenous woman named Jo research ways in which to convey emotions to robots. Together they teach Coughmann, the robot, a guide for identifying a variety of human emotional states. Coughmann’s intelligence recognises the advantage of remaining polite when failing to understand something and to at least feign comprehension. And: the grasping of the fundamental nature of humour helps one understand another. Coughmann falls in love with Jo. The power of their love overcomes every reboot. In grand pictures, Abrantes tells of this love. Life’s great questions cannot be discussed without humour, he quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein and in Os Humores Artificiais, merges thoughts on anthropology, the indigenous community’s way of life and the idiosyncrasies of artificial intelligence.

Biography

Gabriel Abrantes

Born in North Carolina, USA in 1984, he currently lives and works in Lisbon. He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York, the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and Le Fresnoy in Tourcoing, France. Two of his numerous short films have already screened in Berlinale Shorts. His films explore historical, social and political themes through an investigation of post-colonial, gender and identity questions.